Retail Consulting

Retail Consulting helps clients solve the complex challenges that reside at the intersection of business operations and real estate; crafting unique strategies needed to thrive in competitive environments. Retail Consulting maximizes value by understanding how the long-term performance of the retail portfolio is affected by customer demographics and in-store shopping behavior.

Insight into customers, co-tenants, local market knowledge, and locations allow our clients to take control of performance across the portfolio.

Market presence

Create strategic roadmaps for growth, whether opening new stores, searching for new markets, or taking your concept across borders.

Decisive strategies

Speed up retail real estate decisions by providing a rational business case based on objective definitions and clearly established indicators for successful stores.

Portfolio performance

Formulate an action plan to reposition the portfolio where occupancy costs exceed acceptable levels for sales in a given location or prototype, realigning the portfolio for sales growth.

Brand building

Evaluate the potential benefits and impacts of Increasing the retail footprint by buying a competitor or new brand, including which outlets will be most valuable and rationalizing overlapping or duplicate locations.

Customer data

C&W & Envirosell have created a unique service offering that goes inside the store and scientifically observes day-to-day operations to understand what happens at the point-of-sale and ensure retailers are getting the most from their portfolios.

Ownership and development

Leverage insight into the local trade area to attract more customers, rebalance the brand and merchandise mix, evaluate design options and identify opportunities for additional return on retail assets.

How Can We Help?

Customer profile & travel modelingWe develop a customized understanding of the core customer groups, as well as distances traveled to reach each store, and assess the impact of domestic and international. We then leverage this knowledge to pick better store locations and outsmart competitors.

Portfolio rationalization

We help you understand the drivers between excellent and lackluster store performance so that we can assist you in developing an action plan for poor-performing stores, stores that can be rehabilitated by improving operations, or markets where simply exiting is best.

Strategic roadmap

Our teams identify new markets for growth, research new formats and customer segments, and find the potential in novel shopping center types. We help you strategize the scale, timing, and budget for expansion, whether regionally, nationally, or internationally.

Market planning

With our help, you can maximize impact, penetration, and revenues by coordinating and timing store openings. We can also help reduce costs and increase efficiency with multiple construction buildouts, geographically centralized management of multiple stores, and servicing growth without straining supply chains.

Store sales prediction

We help you to understand the revenue potential of each individual location when considering the real estate costs and the location’s position within the context of the broader portfolio.

Cannibalization analysis

Preparing for sales transfer from an existing location to a new location is another service we offer. We help you to avoid increasing real estate and operational costs without adding additional revenue. By locating stores as close together as possible we can assist you in maximizing revenues, number of outlets, and brand penetration.

Merchandise mix

We help to define the tenant mix to respond to changing economic conditions and demographics. We also identify categories (apparel, electronics, etc) with the greatest demand and the least competition, as well as calibrate brands, price points, and tenants to match the demographics of the trade area and tenant mix of competing centers.

Development scale and timing

Our Retail Consulting service can help you quantify current supply and demand to identify gaps in the market. Forecast population, economic, and competing supply growth to model the scale, and phasing of retail development. Identify the appropriate size, shopping experience, and timing to maximize impact and compete effectively for market share.

Acquisition and merger

We understand that not all existing stores will perform the same under the new brand. Overlapping and poor-performing stores will have to be closed and these costs should be incorporated into your strategic plan. We balance performance and revenue upsides against early exit and closure downsides, and look closely at pro forma options to make the best decisions for the portfolio. We can also identify and implement sublease opportunities.

Holistic approach

Our comprehensive, proprietary approach provides clients with analysis and insight across all relevant disciplines (psychographics, point-of-sale analysis, real estate) to create a custom solution for each particular requirements and considerations. Our consulting toolkit is refined though our client engagements and use some of the industry’s most cutting edge software and database solutions.

Recent Case Studies

Cushman & Wakefield represented Georgia Tech in the execution of its 300,000 sf office lease at Coda Tech Square (including financing and project management for build-out), which was the largest office transaction in the Atlanta market in 2016.

Unilever retained Cushman & Wakefield to address challenges facing its North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. The building suffered from aging infrastructure, and its layout was inefficient given the company’s current workforce makeup and utilization needs.

Inventory and appraisal project to inventory the furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) on site, establish the remarketability of the FF&E, and estimate the liquidation value of the FF&E as part of an orderly disposition of all assets.

Within just six months of engaging Cushman & Wakefield, Method successfully acquired the 22-acre Pullman Park brownfield site and secured potential economic development incentives valued at over $10 million.